(SeaPRwire) – By: Lucas Caldwell
That safe Soyuz landing in the Kazakh steppe isn’t just another successful crew return. It’s a nostalgic, almost bittersweet milestone marking the final years of a decades-long cross-national space partnership. The traditional nesting dolls handed to the crew feel less like a celebration and more like a souvenir of an era that’s rapidly fading. Behind the cheers and medical checks, the writing’s on the wall: the International Space Station’s days are numbered, and Russia’s already plotting its exit.
The trio aboard Soyuz MS-28 spent 241 days in orbit, arriving last November. For NASA’s Christopher Williams and Russia’s Sergey Mikaev, it was their first trip to space. Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, the third crew member, had logged one prior mission. The capsule touched down under parachutes southeast of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, after undocking from the ISS’s Rassvet module earlier that day. Rosatom confirmed the deorbiting and descent went off without a hitch.
Post-landing, the crew underwent routine medical checks before being flown by helicopter to Karaganda. Their ISS crewmate Jessica Meir shared farewell photos on X, describing the day as “bittersweet.” With their departure, seven crew members remain aboard the station, and Expedition 75 officially kicks off. It’s a seamless transition on the surface, but every such crew swap now carries an unspoken weight: how many more will there be before the ISS is gone?
Roscosmos and NASA agreed to extend the ISS’s operation through 2030, but the end is already in motion. Decommissioning starts in 2028, and by the decade’s close, the station will be deorbited and sunk in the ocean. Russia’s plan to replace it with its own Russian Orbital Station (ROS) isn’t just a technical project—it’s a declaration of independence from the joint venture. I’ve chatted with space industry insiders who say the split has been years in the making, with quiet shifts in collaboration protocols starting as early as 2022.
This split will ripple through the space supply chain and research ecosystem. NASA’s already leaning on commercial partners like SpaceX for crew transport, but it’ll lose access to Russia’s Soyuz backup capabilities. Russia, meanwhile, will have to build out its own full orbital infrastructure from scratch, a costly and time-consuming endeavor. Shared research projects that relied on cross-national crew expertise will dwindle, and low-Earth orbit will split into two distinct spheres of influence: one led by NASA and its commercial allies, the other by Russia’s ROS.
By 2029, the ISS will operate with a skeleton crew, and Russia’s ROS will be gearing up for its first full mission while NASA shifts its focus entirely to lunar and deep-space initiatives.
Author bio: Lucas Caldwell, a tech opinion leader with millions of X followers, covers space infrastructure and emerging aerospace industry trends.